Category: Microscopy

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cross-section photoshop

Photoshop for paintings’ cross-sections.

Shallow depth of field is a big issue in cross-section examination. It is not that easy to have your embedded sample perfectly flat and laid horizontally under the objective. The outcome is that the sample is not all on focus. You can focus on one area but you lose detail on another area. If this is your

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microscope

A budget microscope for art examination

I have often been asked what kind of microscope is good for art examination. Briefly, you need a trinocular polarizing microscope with epillumination (from the top) and transmitted illumination (light from the bottom). I used to work in Brooklyn with the glorious  polarizing microscope Nikon OPTIPHOT 66. Moving back home in Italy I needed to buy

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microscopy-textile

Microscopy for Art Examination: Identifying textiles

A polarizing microscope is a quick method to identify textiles such as  painting canvases. To identify common historical textile such as cotton, hemp, wool, silk and flax you have to look at certain features. For example, cotton is easily recognized because its fibers show a characteristic twisted shape while hemp, jute and flax are pretty

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prepared slides micro

Microscopy for Art Examination: making slide mounts

Last week I was in Florence visiting my friends at Editech. This is the first established  Italian company working on art diagnostics. They had an awesome office space 5 minutes from the famous city’s location “ponte vecchio.” Now they just moved to a – yet better place! an historical building facing Arno river, just 1 minute

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ultramarine natural

Microscopy for Art Examination: Polarizing Microscopy

This video is just an emotional collection of images. I say emotional because it is a pleasure looking at the mineral pigments under the microscope. Readings I suggest to get a serious handle of polarizing microscopy for art examination are ][1, 2, 3, 4]. And if you want to know EVERYTHING about pigments identification I

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